USA

DAVIS, Calif. (AP) — Banana peels, chicken bones and leftover veggies won’t have a place in California trashcans under the nation’s largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program that’s set to take effect in January.

The effort is designed to keep landfills in the most populous U.S. state clear of food waste that damages the atmosphere as it decays. When food scraps and other organic materials break down they emit methane, a greenhouse gas more potent and damaging in the short-term than carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level in 52 years, more evidence that the U.S. job market is recovering from last year’s coronavirus recession.

Unemployment claims dropped by 43,000 to 184,000 last week, the lowest since September 1969, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, fell to below 219,000, lowest since the pandemic hit the United States hard in March 2020.

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — It had all the traditional trappings of a day on the presidential campaign trail. There was a fundraiser, time spent schmoozing with local activists, two holiday parties, a speech and a visit to a local bakery, where Mike Pence posed for pictures and bought a slice of cake for a driver who was celebrating her birthday while ferrying his staff.

But the former vice president said the tightly scheduled swing through New Hampshire on Wednesday was simply focused on next year’s midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

COCONUT ISLAND, Hawaii (AP) — On a moonless summer night in Hawaii, krill, fish and crabs swirl through a beam of light as two researchers peer into the water above a vibrant reef.

Minutes later, like clockwork, they see eggs and sperm from spawning coral drifting past their boat. They scoop up the fishy-smelling blobs and put them in test tubes.

In this Darwinian experiment, the scientists are trying to speed up coral’s evolutionary clock to breed “super corals” that can better withstand the impacts of global warming.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors building their case against a suburban Minneapolis police officer who killed Black motorist Daunte Wright repeatedly played body-camera video of the fatal shooting, with the officer heard shouting “Taser!” and then collapsing in wails of “Oh my God!” after she had instead fired her handgun.

They used their opening statement Wednesday to portray Kim Potter as a veteran cop who had been repeatedly trained in Taser use, including warnings on avoiding such deadly mix-ups.

(AP) --- Vaccine makers are racing to update their COVID-19 shots against the newest coronavirus threat even before it’s clear a change is needed, just in case.

Experts doubt today’s shots will become useless but say it’s critical to see how fast companies could produce a reformulated dose and prove it works -- because whatever happens with omicron, this newest mutant won’t be the last.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said this week the U.S. would take a more direct role in diplomacy to address Vladimir Putin’s concerns over Ukraine and Europe, part of a broader effort to dissuade the Russian leader from a destabilizing invasion of Ukraine.

But any negotiations to peacefully resolve Europe’s tangled East-West rivalries will present minefields for the U.S. president.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to urge participants at the first-ever White House Summit for Democracy to reverse an ongoing “recession” of democracy that is playing out at a time of rising authoritarianism around the globe and extraordinary strains on foundational institutions in the U.S.

09 Dec 2021; MEMO: The US does not have any evidence that Iran has made a decision to weaponise its nuclear programme, head of the CIA William Burns told the Wall Street Journal's annual CEO Council meeting on Monday.

The US spy agency "doesn't see any evidence that Iran's Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] has made a decision to move to weaponise," said Burns adding his voice to one of the major global issues of recent weeks.

Dec 8 (Reuters) - BioNTech and Pfizer (PFE.N) said on Wednesday a three-shot course of their COVID-19 vaccine was able to neutralise the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test and they could deliver an upgraded vaccine in March 2022 if needed.

The German and U.S. companies said two doses of their vaccine resulted in significantly lower neutralising antibodies but a third dose boosted those antibodies by a factor of 25.